Conference: Pedagogies of Space

The two-day conference, summarizing Index’s program dedicated to Oskar Hansen’s pedagogy of Open Form, explores the notion of space in the context of experimental art and architecture education. Considering space both as a learning environment and a teaching tool, the seminar gathers postwar and contemporary examples of pedagogical practices that question and reshape established sites and modes of creative education.

Deriving from different contexts and time, those practices share their interest in space as a means to provoke changes—either to test the borders of disciplines, as in Hansen’s open-air games or Anna and Lawrence Halprin’s performative workshops, or to transform educational process through redesigning its setting, as in Hansen’s adaptation of the seat of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts to Open Form curriculum. Space may be used as a site to embody innovative pedagogical concepts, as in Ciudad Abierta (Open City), collectively built microutopia constructed by the students and faculty of the Architecture School of the Catholic University in Valparaiso, or as a non-site, becoming a tool to free education from its institutional ties, as in Buckminster Fuller’s nomadic teaching or contemporary self-organized academies that in their lack of attachment to particular place find an escape from neoliberal logics of result-oriented education.

With Eva Diaz, Mark Wasiuta, Oscar Andrade Castro, Anna Molska, Alina Serban, Tor Lindstand, Kristina Lindemann, Jens Evaldsson, Sam Thorne, Kuba Szreder, Alberto Iacovoni, Peter Lang, Magnus Ericsson, Florian Zeyfang, Christina Pech. The conference will be in English.

In addition to presentation by researchers and writers, there will be also presentations from student workshops organized in collaboration with the Kungl. Konsthögskolan and Konstfack, Stockholm, and the Art Acadmy of Jutland, Aarhus.

Admission: 80 SEK per day, 140 SEK for both days, consc: 50 SEK / 80 SEK

Tickets can be purchased during Index office hours. We accept cards and cash payments.

Social media: @indexstockholm #pedagogiesofspace

Organized in collaboration with Aleksandra Kędziorek, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw.

With kind support by the Polish Institute in Stockholm, the Polish Presidency in the Council of Baltic Sea States, and the Royal Institute of Art, Architecture.

About Index

Index is based in the centre of Stockholm and offers an ambitious program of exhibitions,

events and learning activities for a wide range of audiences. The program includes emerging

artists with specifically produced new work, alongside presentations by artists from previous

generations shown in a new perspective. Larger projects are accompanied by an extensive

public program, often produced in collaboration with other organizations in Stockholm and

abroad, with talks and film screenings, music, dance and poetry events. Index takes risks and

opens up various ways to encounter contemporary culture and debate. Celebrating its 40th

anniversary in 2015, Index is today one of the most important and longest-standing spaces for

contemporary art in Scandinavia.

Opening hours

Wednesday - Friday 12am - 6pm, Saturday - Sunday 12am - 4pm

Monday, Tuesday and Public Holidays (Red days) closed

Image Credit: Open City, Ritoque, Chile: Poetic Act for the ‘Opening' of the site, 1971. Courtesy of Archivo Histórico Jose Vial, Escuela Arquitectura y Diseño, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaiso

Program 25-26 February 2016

Thu, 25 February 2016

4:00 pm—5:45 pm

Aleksandra Kędziorek (Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw), Axel Wieder (Index, Stockholm), Introduction

Eva Diaz (Pratt Institute, New York) on Buckminster Fuller, Black Mountain College, nomad teaching and global learning network

Mark Wasiuta (Columbia University, New York) on Anna and Lawrence Halprin’s workshops and learning as a performative activity

6:00 pm—7:30 pm

Oscar Andrade Castro (TU Delft) on the Open City of Amereida, poetic crossings and other approaches to space developed by the School of Valparaíso

Anna Molska (artist, Warsaw) on Oskar Hansen’s architecture as a film setting

Fri, 26 February 2016

2 pm—3:30 pm

Workshops presentations and course introductions, with Peter Lang (KKH, Stockholm), Magnus Ericsson(Konstfack, Stockholm), Florian Zeyfang (Art Academy, Aarhus) and students. Moderator: Alberto Iacovoni(VCU Qatar)

4:00 pm—5:45 pm

Alina Serban (art historian, Bucharest) on the Sigma group in Romania and the cartography of learning

Tor Lindstrand (KTH Stockholm) on the Design Process Studio at KTH and the practice with students for an upcoming exhibition about Botkyrka at Arkdes.

Kristina Lindemann, Jens Evaldsson (artist, Stockholm) on the Floating School Stockholm and learning through building micro-utopias

6:00 pm—7:30 pm

Sam Thorne (Nottingham Contemporary) on self-organized education and artists’ work with social space, focusing on Catedra Arte de Conducta, School of Panamerican Unrest and Open School East

Kuba Szreder (curator, Warsaw) on the Slow/Free University of Warsaw and the circulation as an object and a space of research

Final discussion, moderation: Christina Pech (KTH, Stockholm)